The map of "blue gold"

Atlas of hidden water may avert future conflict:

They are one of the world's greatest and most precious natural resources, yet are entirely hidden. Now, for the first time, a high-resolution map shows where underground aquifers store vast amounts of water.

via KurzweilAI.net

stray bullets

Science close to unveiling invisible man Invisibilty devices, long the realm of science fiction and fantasy, have moved closer after scientists engineered a material that can bend visible light around objects.

How to blow it It's the most winnable presidential election in American history - but the Democrats are old hands at losing. Michael Moore offers some helpful hints on how they might gift it all to the Republicans. (via)

Covert operation floats network-sniffing balloon Hidden in the back of a 22-foot moving truck, Hill and his team of about a dozen volunteers launched the balloon Friday morning, sending it 150 feet into the air for about 20 minutes to use special antennas and scanning software to scope out the Las Vegas skyline for unsecured wireless networks, an activity Hill calls "warballooning." Hackers have practiced wardriving for years, driving around in cars with computers and specialized software that sniffs for networks.

Controller praised for texting pilot down safely Five people on a flight from Kerry to Jersey received mobile phone text instructions from a quick-thinking air traffic controller when he guided them in to a safe landing at Cork. (via)

What's the big deal? It's the little things Again and again, American history has turned on the dime of such tiny things. The Watergate conspiracy might have unraveled no matter what, but it was a strip of tape on a Watergate building office door that alerted a security guard that burglars were about. Jimmy Carter's presidency might have crashed and burned anyway, but it was a crashing and burning helicopter in the sands of Iran during a failed rescue of American hostages that may have sealed his loss in 1980... The way small causes yield huge effects is itself only one piece of the much grander idea of simplexity, a science that is increasingly being studied at universities and institutes around the world... (via)

Is That a Real Reality, or Did You Make It Up Yourself? The idea that music can transform reality predates by many millennia the category "music" as we know it. Before art was understood as a phenomenon in itself apart from its ritual application (a relatively recent and culturally specific development), what we now call music was indistinguishable from magic. (via)

Vin Mariani A good 20 years before the original cocaine-infused Coca-Cola taught the world to grind its teeth and give ineffectual bathroom-stall handjobs in per•fect har•mo•ny, there was another drink of choice among those wishing to feel invigorated and overconfident for no good reason. It was called “coca wine” and it was loved not only by self-important blowhards wearing too much jewelry but by Kings and Popes and…

also:
Two Great Stories - BOTH TRUE - and worth reading!
I don’t care about fonts (via)
Penniless author sells shares in next novel (good idea) (via)
Athlete-bloggers at the Beijing Olympics
The Hardest Places in the World to Find a Bathroom
A Look at the Secret Service, and More from CRS

viddy:
Lecture on Marcus Auprelius (via)
Reggie Watts - F*$K,S#%T,STACK (NSFW) (via)
daedelus on the monome

Światosław Wojtkowiak

Tremendous photographs and travelogue-style descriptions on his website.

via The World's Best Ever

Cola Life Campaign

photo: Nick Gripton

In 1988, Simon Berry, Chief Executive of ruralnet|uk was working as a development worker in remote north east of Zambia, conscious that while he could buy a bottle of Coke anywhere, 1 in every 5 children under the age of five die in these areas through simple causes such as dehydration through diarrhea. Twenty years later, through the power of social media technology, Berry has launched a simple campaign asking Coca Cola to use a small part of its incredible distribution capacity to get medicines, such as rehydration salts, to dying children.

Read more and see how you can help.

stray bullets

How CAPTCHA got trashed CAPTCHA used to be an easy and useful way for Web administrators to authenticate users. Now it's an easy and useful way for malware authors and spammers to do their dirty work. More good news.

2008 State of the Future report proposes 15 global challenges Even more good news.

How to Write With Style From one of the best. (via)

also:
Stefano De Luigi - Photo Essay: Blindness (via)
Something to Read: The Book Bike A most unusual bicycle that travels around Chicago on the weekends giving away books. (via)
This is Sand Big Time time devourer. (via)
CISMA Brazilian director, Denis Kamioka, aka CISMA, has his portfolio online. The Nike football ad is awesome. Polamalu rocks it. (via)

Western man acquired from the technology of literacy the power to act without reacting….In the electric age, when our central nervous system is technologically extended to involve us in the whole of mankind and to incorporate the whole of mankind in us, we necessarily participate, in depth, in the consequences of our every action. It is no longer possible to adopt the aloof and dissociated role of the literate Westerner. — Marshall McLuhan, from Understanding Media (via)

Rush Hour, Siberia

Terminalnomad:

The Town of Huzir, on the edge of Lake Baikal in Siberian Russia. The town was built almost completely of wood, and felt completely uninhabited and abandoned.

via Vagabondish

20080610southkoreabeefprotest_candlelight

South Korea Warns Against Further Beef Protests
k.popped
via .PICAPIXELS

Love in the times of massacre

A young couple seeks refuge under a bridge during the Tiananmen Square Massacre on June 5, 1989. Photographer: Liu Heung Shing

Liu Heung Shing - China, Portrait of a Country
via Ministry of Truth

stray bullets

Five Steps to Sustainable Governance in Africa Paul Collier, a professor of economics at Oxford University and the author of The Bottom Billion, discusses policy options for helping the poorest countries in Africa.

Tons of Scrap Metal Removed from Chernobyl Zone Daily New reports indicate that up to 100 tons of scrap metal are removed from the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone every day. Approximately half this amount is legally removed by the government, but the other half is smuggled out to the rest of the world.

Brazil's pigeon drug mules Brazilian prison authorities have discovered carrier pigeons being used to deliver drugs and mobile phones to inmates. (via)

also: How To Survive Without Air-Conditioning; 9 Extraordinary Human Abilities; Dogs Acting Human (temptation from the fluffy side)

Lagniappe: PostPanic + Postman Returns (watch, cool visuals, booming sound) (via)

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. - Hanlon's Razor (not to be confused with Heinlein's corollary to Murphy's Law - Things will go wrong, even if they can't. Murphy was an optimist.*)

*see

Astonishing Volcanoes that Cause Death and Destruction

Photo EPA

Life in the Fast Lane takes us on an in-depth and action-packed tour of the world's most violent, destructive and deadly volcanoes. (with notes on volcanoes as alternate energy and volcano vacations)

Coober Pedy - Underground Town

Coober Pedy Hotel

Offbeat Earth:

You may be thinking that living underground like this makes no sense, but the harsh summer temperatures in the deserts of South Australia can often times be too much. These underground caves sustain a consistent cool temperature, making it the perfect place to live in a not-so-perfect town.

Looks like a nice place. Odd how there's so few people in the pictures.

via Coudal Partners

The World's Ten Dirtiest Cities

Linfen, China: This city of more than four million is in the heart of Shanxi, China’s coal-production hub, and has frequently been deemed the most polluted city in the world; citizens suffer from choking clouds of coal dust as well as drinking water polluted with arsenic. But Linfen is not the only city in the country with environmental woes—the World Bank estimates that 16 of the world’s 20 most polluted cities are found in China’s industrial areas. Photo by Blacksmith Institute/Andreas Haberman

The World's Ten Worst Cities
via /.

The Blue City

roblerner:

Jaipur is meant to be the blue city of India. In reality its hard to get a shot of a decent number of blue buildings without also getting a load of horrible dilapidated houses is the picture. Originally only the priests were allowed blue houses but when they realised the paint was a natural insect repellent everyone started using it!

found on: 4 Amazing Ancient Cities of Color (well worth a look)

“Chocolate City” - Africans seek their dreams in China

“巧克力城”——非洲人寻梦中国 trans. by Blogging for China:

Clem quickly cuts through the flow of car traffic, like the fish you can never catch. He hesistated when he saw the Southern Metropolis reporter, but finally crossed the road using the pedestrian bridge nearby. He embarassedly stuck out his tongue, saying: “Sorry, I still don’t have the habit of waiting for traffic lights and crossing at pedestrian bridges.” When he’s warned that “Guangzhou’s public security isn’t very good, be careful with your backpack”, his eyes open wide with shock. “Are you joking? Public security here is the best!”

25 year old Clem comes from Nigeria. Before, he saw Lagos, the largest city in Nigeria, as heaven. But after he arrived in Guangzhou, he felt he truly stood at the gate to heaven; China is the true heaven.

Africans are finding Guangzhou, China to be a new land of opportunity with goods to be moved and fortunes to be gained. They gather in China-Africa commerce malls and load up on inexpensive goods, knock-offs and tails, products that don't pass inspection, sold on the cheap. And the prices are ridiculously cheap: Dolce and Gabbana jeans are 20 RMB (3 USD), Gucci high-heels and purse together for 100 RMB (15 USD)... as long as it has the proper logo, it's good to go back home, regardless of its provenance.

The Africans, predominantly Nigerians, live in village-districts in the city of Guangdong, collectively known as Chocolate City. The conditions are comparatively good and healthy profits are promised to the clever speculator.

However, along with vibrant commerce, there emerge the inevitable problems of racism, language barriers, cultural clashes and annoyances. The Africans are predictably marginalized and long-term visitors find little meaningful social interaction outside of their own social groups. But life is life and business is business, so things move along at their paces and most shrug it off and find a way to make it work. The options, for most, back home, are non-existent.

I thought this was an fascinating shoes-on-the-ground account-- a thin slice of the global economy in action. Things aren't always right or for the best but we always manage to chug along and find our way through it.

They'll get used to each other after a while, for the most part. There will always be incorrigible, subtle and unwitting racists and xenophobes among us, it's hardwired into us on many levels. We have to accept this for what it is and try to find a way to move beyond it, universally. There is too much important work to do to get bogged down in all that business of hate and disdain. Let's keep our disputes personal and amongst politicians.

It happens when each individual person treats each individual person as a fellow human being, every time, every day.

via Danwei

Google Internet Cafe

Strangest Internet Cafes From Around the World

Life Goes On In Tehran

If nothing else, we share the skies, the sun and the moon...

This is not the Tehran they show on the news. I am changed in some small way by looking at these photos.

Life Goes On In Tehran - A Monthly Photoblog
good eye Nag on the Lake

Readings 6-11-08

Diary: Sierra Leone slum clinic

I am Abdul. I clean the clinic, get water, watch the clinic and collect anything they send me to get. I am a volunteer...

At the end of the month, the clinic manager gives me some money for me and my family. It is not much money, but it is difficult to find a job.

Kind of a bummer, but this is the way it is. This is our world.

via Information Junk
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The Rise of the Mega-Region

When people talk about economic competitiveness, the focus tends to be on nation states. In the 1980s, many were obsessed with the rise of Japan. Today, our gaze has shifted to the phenomenal growth of Brazil, Russia, India and China. But this focus on nations is off the mark.

The real driving force of the world economy is a new and incredibly powerful economic unit: the mega-region.

Extending far beyond a single core city and its surrounding suburbs, a mega-region is an area that hosts business and economic activity on a massive scale, generating a large share of the world's economic activity and an even larger share of its scientific discoveries and technological innovations.

While there are 191 nations in the world, just 40 significant mega-regions power the global economy. Home to more than one-fifth of the world's population, these 40 megas account for two-thirds of global economic output and more than 85% of all global innovation.

I've thought for a long time that nationalism was defunct and was only sustained in deference to convenience. When it's economically feasible, or even necessary to make the adjustment, regionalism seems to be the next logical step. Regions are established by economic, geographic and demographic realities, not arbitrary lines drawn on a map in the late-19th Century. They are already forming and functioning. Globalization is only a tenuous consensus in comparison.

Update: see this rather interesting paper from the Army War College.

via linkfilter.net (+)
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Monkey Business

For all his knowledge, Dr. Zaius (human/orangutan villain of Planet of the Apes) simply couldn’t learn to have compassion for humans. The students of Helping Hands’ Monkey College, by contrast, learn to be caring above all else. Since 1979, the Boston-based nonprofit organization has been breeding and training monkeys to care for quadriplegics and others with immobilizing spinal-cord injuries.

I had no idea. They can even pop in a CD and fix you a drink.
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1984 J.G. Ballard Interview

BALLARD: Writing a novel is one of those modern rites of passage, I think, that lead us from an innocent world of contentment, drunkenness, and good humor, to a state of chronic edginess and the perpetual scanning of bank statements. By the eighteenth book, one has a sense of having bricked oneself into a niche, a roosting place for other people's pigeons. I wouldn't recommend it.

via rodcorp
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Funky Chinatown and the Asian riff

We've all heard it and know it has a name. Some of us have heard it and don't know it has a name. At worst, it can be interpreted as a musical parody, a musical construct of the 'Orient' or 'Asia.' At best, it covers too much area to mean very much at all.

The melodic phrase goes by several names: 'The Asian Riff', 'The Chinese Melody', 'The Stereotypical Oriental Tune', 'The Asian Jingle.' It was around long before 'Kungfu Fighting' and 'Turning Japanese' appeared, but the huge success of 'Kungfu Fighting' in 1974 definitely put it on the map. Its associations are so powerful that we only need to hear the riff to instantly convey an 'Asian' context.

This post made my head swim, but it's a great breakdown of the Asian Riff, known in recent western pop-culture from the songs Kung Fu Fighting and Turning Japanese. Before that it was a sonic meme; nine notes of formulaic musical device that represented oriental exoticism and had little to do with anything real.
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ends

Laos: Legacy of a War

Foreign Policy:

The toll of war: A woman in the village of Na Phat rings a U.S. bombshell used as a bell outside a small primary school. During the war in Vietnam, U.S. airstrikes turned neighboring Laos into the world’s most heavily bombed country per capita.

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Potheads rejoice! Drugs that encourage the growth of new neurons in the brain are now headed for clinical trials; There are six places where it's really bad to be a woman; Sir Charles Shults found obvious changes in the Phoenix images; and the UAV Sniper Drone is an unmanned flying gun. (via)

Africa in Perspective

from Doobybrain.com
via A Welsh View